Winter Sun at Riu Touareg – Christmas at the hotel

I’m not a big Christmas person. I might even go so far as to say I don’t like it. Most of my working life I have volunteered to work Christmas day to let the people who have young families or really care about it have the time off. The dislike might come from working in hospitality and having Christmas parties nearly every night for a month. By the time you get to the actual day, you are so worn out you really just want to sleep. This year though I’m the one staying in a hotel. In the time we have been here, so far nothing has really been mentioned to us about anything ‘special’ that will happen in the hotel around this time. The App had an update with a Christmas and New Years menu which looked really varied and a bit different to the meals that have been on offer so far, which is a nice touch. But nothing was mentioned about if we need to book a table, and as we haven’t for any other night in the standard restaurant, I thought it would probably be needed for this. There has been no mention of any activities that will take place on Christmas Day, in fact, the app shows nothing at all happening on these days compared to the full schedule they normally show. I had expected something to be put in the room, or perhaps something to be put up at the entrance to the restaurants to tell us if there are any changes to the timings in the restaurants throughout the day, but nothing.

On the morning of the 22nd of December, there was a table in the corner of the ‘town square’ part of the hotel, in the corner with a few A4 signs. Since we sat nearby (and I’m a bit nosy) I went to look. It had 2 times for the 25th Gala dinner…???? Not really sure what this was, so we had a chat with the staff. Yes, they informed us that you have to book for the 25th at either 18:15 pm or 20:45 pm, we told them oh we had no idea. Also, men have to wear long pants for the meal which hadn’t been pointed out when booking the holiday (so that some could be packed) or any time before we arrived. Thankfully OH has some with him anyway, but I’m sure others won’t have thought they needed anything but shorts since the weather is a steady 20+ degrees, even in the evenings. We opted for the earlier sitting, or else I would fall asleep in my food. The next choice was the main restaurant or poolside. The poolside was said to be a bit quieter, so this sounded good, and we were given a sea view, very nice. With a description of where our table will be, how to get to it and the ticket for the meal in hand, we walked off still a little confused. But at least we would get food and a table. Not everyone goes to this “town square” area of the hotel, as they stay by the pool and use the poolside restaurant, so I’m not sure how these people would know they need to book a table and a time for Christmas day. Obviously, you need to keep your eyes open if you are in resort at a special time of year, as communication doesn’t seem to be the best.

Morning of the 23rd and the “booking” table was back for Christmas reservations. A few more people drifted towards the table, but there still wasn’t any communication from the hotel or Tui. The table also appeared in the evening, and this time had a huge line of people wrapping around one of the seating areas in the main restaurant, it seemed people had realised they needed to do something or had heard by way of word of mouth, even though they weren’t really sure what they had to do, or why.

Christmas Eve had the table available in the morning and evening and now people were waiting before the staff even arrived to help them, with a very long queue. Still no communication from anyone and even though I had seen a practice run of what I assume was a Christmas show with lots of decorations on the stage, there still was nothing on the app or around the hotel.

Christmas morning arrived and we had the Sunday morning drinks station inside the main restaurant with Cava, Fanta and Mimosa on offer. We have had this each Sunday whilst we have been here, so it seems to be a weekly thing, but I’m not sure if it is year-round or not. Some of the restaurant had been moved around and some of the usual stations for food had been closed ready for the evening, so the planning phase was obviously in full swing. The hotel had a team member checking with each table now to make sure they had booked for the evening, which made me think that if they were having to do this, then there must be a fair few people who had not booked yet. There seemed to be at least a few people who hadn’t realised they needed to book for the evening and we were at breakfast fairly early (the neighbouring room had some very excited children that had woken us up at 3:38 am, and I had my tutoring work to do). The stage continued to be decorated and a huge balloon arch was being put together by the stage team, so I assumed there would be a special show in the evening. But there still wasn’t anything on the app or displayed in the hotel, so we were unsure if anything was happening around the hotel as it would normally, or if the team had the day off.

I had a great morning doing my tutoring on Cambly, talking to people all around the world, helping them with their English lessons and showing off my Christmas T-shirt that I had brought specially for the day. Want to know more about teaching or learning on Cambly?

Have a look at my post on my experience with the platform here. Cambly - Remote Working Teaching on the Online English Learning Platform - My User guide and review (onepawinthesand.com)

After I finished we headed to the main restaurant for some lunch. One section of tables had been cordoned off and set up ready for the evening, and it all looked amazing. We were really looking forward to the meal, even though we still didn’t have much idea what would be happening. We spent the rest of the day on the beach and enjoying the sun, something that we definitely wouldn’t be doing back home in England.

At just before 6:15 pm we headed to the restaurant where there was a short line of people. There was a team member showing guests to their tables. As we had a map of the restaurant from when we booked and we thought we know where our table was we were waved through. One of the other entrances had a huge line of people waiting to be seated, so we had chosen the right door. Our table was where we thought and we found it easily.

As we walked through the restaurant we could see the serving tables covered with food. All beautifully displayed and looking very impressive. We sat at our table and waited for a staff member to offer drinks, and possibly explain how things would proceed as they have done for the other evening meals. The sea view was a little hard to see since the chairs were pointing into the restaurant rather than out to the beach, but the thought was there. There wasn’t a menu or information on the table, so I looked on the Riu App for the Christmas menu as a reminder of what we would be able to get to eat and what special drinks were available. The staff came around to offer red or white wine which we didn’t want, and when we asked for the Cava shown on the menu, they seemed confused and walked away. We weren’t even offered water as we normally were.

People had started to line up at the starter station and it was very busy, so we went to the main course station, still not keen on crowds of people. There was a good choice of food and it was much quieter there than in the starter section which seemed to have about a hundred people gathered around it. I chose the salmon and some side dishes, it was all beautifully cooked and tasted amazing. After the main course, the line at the starter station had gotten shorter, so I decided to join this. People were still arriving at the restaurant, even though we had been told a start time of 6:15 some people seemed to arrive without a table booking or were having problems with the number of settings at their booked table, but the staff were sorting them quite quickly. There was lots of choice on the starters table salads, fish, and meats prepared in a variety of ways, so I had a small amount of everything that looked good. I also got a drink from the drink station since nobody had returned to our table at all since the first offer of wine. It just seemed like the staff doing the drinks didn’t quite know what they were doing. Just as we finished our second course one of the staff came around with bread rolls (around 7 pm). Even though we had finished our main and starter courses we still accepted. We had eaten the other courses in the wrong order, so why not?

The staff came to clear the table, and it was time for dessert. They had a huge choice of cakes, a special dessert similar to what they do normally in the main dining room, plus there was a chocolate fountain with a vast choice of fruit to dip and an area with cheese and biscuits. I had the special cake, which was a sponge roll with chocolate cream. I then went back to visit the cake stand and had some biscuits and another cake that was very nice.

This is when the staff circulated with the cava, so we could enjoy it with our dessert. Since we were in no rush we sat for a little while and then visited the cheese station. There were lots of cheeses on offer, but there was also quite a lot of repetition, but this is probably because there were so many people in attendance.

This is probably one of the first galas this hotel has done (due to Covid and when they opened) so I think they did an amazing job. There are things that could be improved, some of my ideas are below, but I’m sure they have learnt from their experience and will make changes in the future.

Communication and information for the event was pretty poor. Since the hotel has an app it would be quite easy to send out a notification to everyone staying with the details they need. The speciality restaurants were booked through the app so this would be an option for the gala dinners as well. The table number could then be allocated and sent as a confirmation in the same way you get the confirmation after booking for these restaurants. If people didn’t have the app the hotel could put something at the entrance to the restaurants to tell people to book at reception. Tui didn’t send out anything either via their app and since they seemed to have the majority of the guests at the hotel I thought they would send something but they seem to only send out messages about the trips they wanted to fill while we were there.

Having some instructions on the table so you know what to expect would also be useful. I know this would have to be in a few different languages but something simple welcoming you and saying ‘please help yourself from the buffet’ would be enough. The fact that they called it a gala dinner made it feel like it should be different from what you would normally do, which made me feel unsure about what to do.

Overall a very nice meal, though it was a bit chaotic. Having worked in hotels and having organised and run Christmas meals in the past, I know how much work can go into the day. The staff were excellent and they deserved the round of applause they received as they were led around the seating areas. It was nice to see the guests in attendance show their appreciation as I had seen some of them could be quite rude at other times around the resort.